Space: Above and Beyond is an American science fiction television series that aired on Fox, created and written by Glen Morgan and James Wong.

"[3] Set in the years 2063–2064, the show focuses on the "Wildcards", members of the United States Marine Corps 58th Squadron of the Space Aviator Cavalry.

They are stationed on the space carrier USS Saratoga, acting as both infantry and pilots of SA-43 Endo/Exo-Atmospheric Attack Jet ("Hammerhead") fighters, battling an invading force of extraterrestrials.

These human-looking androids, referred to as "walking personal computers", rebelled, formed their own societies, and waged a guerrilla war against the humans from remote bases.

To defeat the Silicates, a new underclass of genetically engineered and artificially gestated humans were bred to quickly swell the ranks of the military.

These troops, collectively known as In Vitroes or sometimes, pejoratively, "tanks" or "nipple-necks", are born at the physical age of 18 and trained solely for combat.

They appear to be unable to survive in atmospheres that support human life; they are often seen wearing armored life-support systems that provide them with the methane they need to breathe.

Distinguishing characteristics of the un-armored Chig are small black eyes set deeply in the head, pink skin, a lack of a prominent nose, a protruding upper jaw, and structures resembling gills to either side of the mandible.

Special operations missions, infiltrations, assassinations, sabotage, and small unit engagements all prove effective against the Chig attackers.

The Chigs ally with the remnants of the Silicates, a human-built race of androids, that fled to space after losing the AI Wars on Earth.

It was eventually discovered that while the Chigs may possess some form of "religion" (given that they consider their breeding grounds to be sacred), they never developed a concept of an afterlife.

As the Chigs encountered snippets of human culture, through intercepted radio transmissions or recovered personal effects, they drastically misinterpreted this alien concept of an "afterlife".

This led the Chigs to believe that dead human soldiers will literally spring back to life sometime after their death and that burying a corpse aids in this process.

The surviving Silicates that fled into deep space have suffered from a lack of adequate maintenance for many years, and they frequently possess minor damage to their outer covering, which reveals their machine parts underneath.

This made the Silicates a deadly enemy in the AI Wars, because while they experienced no fear in combat, they realized the value of random and savage attacks meant to terrify and demoralize humans.

The Silicate's gambling-centered ideology even extended to combat tactics: they randomly chose to attack Vansen's home as the result of a coin toss.

Literally removed ("born") from their individual gestation tanks at the physical age of eighteen, they are educated swiftly and harshly to enable them to enter society with at least a nominal idea of how to comport themselves.

The Aero-Tech and the UN story arc explores topics such as power, intrigue, politics, the military-industrial complex, perhaps to some degree also the ethics of science in the service of military and corporate interests and moral responsibility.

The final episode of the series ends in a cliffhanger, with T. C. McQueen badly injured and most of the major cast apparently killed or missing in action, with only Cooper Hawkes and Nathan West left.

A human colony sixteen light-years away is attacked and destroyed by an unknown alien force (the "Chigs") while a group of youngsters enlist in the United States Marine Corps.

The recruits are sent on a routine training mission where captured enemy information reveals the apparent battle plans of the alien attackers.

A single enemy fighter ace, nicknamed "Chiggy von Richthofen", is rumored to be hunting and destroying entire squadrons.

The brass decides that all knowledge about "Chiggy von Richthofen" has to be suppressed and officially denied by all high-ranking officers for the sake of morale.

Colonel T. C. McQueen, a survivor of the destroyed elite 127th the Angry Angels squadron, prepares himself to search, find, and engage the enemy ace.

Some of the models used, such as the USS Saratoga and the alien carriers, lack detailed textures and bump maps, which gave them a strongly polygonal appearance.

Wong and Morgan were initially unconvinced on hearing Walker's synth demos, until it was explained that her musical ideas would be filled out by an orchestra.

The actor Joel de la Fuente described his perception of a possibly stereotypical nature of his character Lt. Paul Wang, for which he felt discomfort for the role of "a cowardly soldier who betrayed his comrades":[16] Whenever I see Asians in military uniform, I cannot help but recall common images of Asians from the Vietnam War and World War II.

Even though this ignores the fact that the Americans they were killing had invaded their country and napalmed their children, but people tend to leave out the important details...Space: Above and Beyond was released on DVD in the United States and Canada by 20th Century Fox as a set of five DVD-10 discs on November 8, 2005.

Certain pressings feature a distorted image of the Babylon 5 space station, which is unrelated to and does not appear in the series, on the discs' title screens.

[19] In April 2012, Space: Above and Beyond was released on Region 2 PAL DVD in the UK by Fremantle Media / Medium Rare Entertainment.